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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803680">Rerum Mortalium</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorianvirgil/pseuds/victorianvirgil'>victorianvirgil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>12 Days of Christmas (2020) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV), Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders (Mentioned) - Freeform, Killing, M/M, NSFW, One-Shot, Sleep | Remy Sanders (mentioned) - Freeform, Some Implied Sex, Unsympathetic Light Sides (Sanders Sides), Unsympathetic Logic | Logan Sanders, Unsympathetic Morality | Patton Sanders, Unsympathetic Sides (Sanders Sides), also they're both under thirty but adults so sexy, dw guys i didn't write about cannibalism in this one, hannibal lecter!logan sanders, i just miss logicality and hannigram are my current babes, i took direct quotes/scenes from the show, ig this counts as a crossover, like a lil flashback don't whip it out, romanticization of murder, ummm anyway hannibal au, will graham!patton sanders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:14:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,682</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorianvirgil/pseuds/victorianvirgil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>FBI criminal profiler Patton Roe has been framed for the murder of five women, or at least he thinks he has. While battling a mental illness causing him to slip out of his body and wake up in a different location entirely, he cannot trust his unconscious self's actions. But the law trusts the evidence Patton had apparently left behind.</p><p>Psychiatrist Dr. Logan Shaw visits his former patient on Christmas Eve, only a week since Patton's arrest. Things have never been easy between them, and now with Patton aware of the game the other has been playing, neither knows who will arise victorious--or if either of them will live at all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>12 Days of Christmas (2020) [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rerum Mortalium</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     From the dark, windowless cell of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Patton Roe was unable to spend the first snowstorm of the year with his dogs.</p><p>     The vacant, gray wall was almost the perfect camera, for the longer Patton kept his gaze fixed on it, the more vivid he could see his hodgepodge pack of strays trampling through the frozen, dying grass, Roman among them with the cold biting at his exposed skin. Flakes of pure crystal caught in his crown of curls, and full lips pulled back into a joyous grin, the only evidence of dismay found in his darling amber eyes where he couldn't hide his sorrow.</p><p>     <em> “I’ll go pick your dogs up in a couple of hours,” </em> Roman had said, hands tightening on the armrests by his side to center himself and calm his breath. <em> “I’ll take them home with me and I’ll take care of them until . . . whenever.” </em></p><p>     <em> “Whenever could be a long time from now,” </em>Patton replied through gritted teeth, pained at every single meaning of his words.</p><p>     <em> “I’ll take care of them until then.” </em></p><p>     Roman didn’t believe he was innocent, not at all—but in his defense, no one did.</p><p>     Visions of Winston and Patton’s other dogs flashed through his mind once more before vanishing entirely, ears just catching the sound of a well-manufactured sole gently pressing down onto the linoleum floor, the alarm signaling the opening of the barred gates to the hall following soon after.</p><p>     Patton was the only patient in this wing, and he had half a mind to tell his visitor to let him spend his Christmas Eve alone.</p><p>     The visitor took their time in their approach, unhurried and content with making Patton itch at his wrist anxiously; his nails, with nothing better to do, dug into the skin, threatening to draw blood. No one had seen him since the head of the Behavioral Science Unit at the Bureau had visited, and Agent Remy Douglas didn’t seem the sort to let Patton see another living soul until his trial, regardless of whatever friendship they had. Or had before all this, at least. Before the murders.</p><p>      Before he went back into the field to save lives, became Dr. Logan Shaw’s patient in order to save his own.</p><p>     And in a matter of moments, the man himself stood before Patton, sharp face and eyes framed by the cold, metal bars like a dark caress.</p><p>     Not Agent Douglas. No, the gods, or whatever being reigned above, wouldn't let Patton be so lucky.</p><p>     A spider’s smile crawled onto the doctor's lips as something like poorly-concealed amusement danced in his eyes. Like the mask of a person suit lowered for just a moment before it was tightened and pulled taut again. Now, Logan appeared remorseful, pained by the situation they found themselves in.</p><p>     A deep breath reminded Patton that the other felt nothing else, that whatever evil he thought lurked inside the doctor’s soul was just in his goddamn head—jumps he subconsciously made in order to make sense of things he couldn't understand. Like the mental illness Patton suffered from paired with encephalitis causing him to slowly, slowly lose his mind as he burned beneath his skin. Inside his skull, bones turned to nothing but ash.</p><p>     It took a moment for Patton to even realize that the doctor was talking.</p><p>     Reluctantly, he voiced, “Sorry can you . . . repeat that.”</p><p>     A sympathetic nod before Dr. Logan cleared his throat, Adam's apple bobbing beneath his sinfully pale skin. “I said: it appears that you have an admirer.”</p><p>     A jump to assume that Patton had read Tattle Crime’s article <em> Patton Roe’s Greatest Hits </em>covering the murder of Maryland’s state governor, who was impaled, mutilated, and then set on fire. Surely to attempt to confess to Patton’s alleged murders. An assumption, but a correct one, nonetheless.</p><p>     “You think someone killed a man because they admire me?”</p><p>     “I think the boundaries of what is considered normal are getting drastically narrower.” Clever and carefully-chosen, though Patton expected nothing less from such a noteworthy and well-respected psychiatrist. Continuing, he added, “Outside those boundaries of what most consider ethical, this may be intended as a helpful gesture. A generous gift.”</p><p>      Patton stood in acknowledgement, the springs of his bed creaking as they were relieved from his weight. His feet were bare and his toes curled in disagreement with his intent when they hit the floor. A loose, careless breath escaped from Patton when something shifted in Logan’s dark eyes, steps drawn out as he approached the cell.</p><p>     He lowered his gaze to the doctor’s shoes, the bit of frost on the top of the toe. “And just how far would you go to help me, Dr. Shaw?”</p><p>     From the way his fingers twitched and drew his attention upward once more, Patton imagined the other knew that he had officially joined the chess game—a player now and a piece no longer. “It hadn't occurred to me to kill someone, if that's what you mean.”</p><p>     “Of course not.”</p><p>     “But I’m grateful that someone has.”</p><p>     Clever and carefully-chosen, indeed.</p><p>     Well, Patton could use his words like pawns too. “Gratitude has a short half-life.”</p><p>     The corner of Logan’s lips twitched upwards as he replied, “So does doubt.”</p><p>     If Patton was actually an intelligent, psychopathic mass-murderer, he may just know what the hell they were even talking about.</p><p>     But the doctor spared him from having to reply, shifting the conversation with a simple “I have new thoughts about who you are, Pat. There may very well be another killer—you may not be one at all.”</p><p>     “I want there to be because I don't want to be one,” Patton said, a chill running up his spine as Dr. Logan Shaw stepped past the white line he had been instructed to stay behind, long, surgical fingers wrapping around the thin bars as if he had the strength to bend them himself. Choke them.</p><p>     Beneath the mauve shirt buttoned up to the swell of his throat, a deep, cherry-wine bruise caught Patton’s attention. His lips had been there, one hand pinning Logan’s wrists to the soft mattress while the other revealed the knife that had been tucked into his back pocket.</p><p>     If the hickey was still there, there was no doubt the slash over Logan’s heart was too.</p><p>     “You still suspect me, then?”</p><p>     Embarrassed, Patton swallowed hard. “I don't know what anyone is capable of anymore, least of all myself. Not when I lose track of time.”</p><p>     <em> A symptom of dementia, </em>Dr. Janus Derosiers claimed after Patton’s most recent psychological evaluation. For waking up in the middle of the forest at dawn, feet caked in mud and hands filthy from blood was not normal, especially not when he had actually been awake the whole time but retained no memory of how he got there, had no control of his actions.</p><p>     “Besides,” he continued, “accusing you makes me look insane. And I’m not insane.” A beat. “Not anymore.”</p><p>     Logan opened his mouth, but Patton lost himself in the darkness between his lips, subconscious following his gaze down the other’s throat and into darkness. There, Patton saw himself inside his psychiatrist, the lights of the rather materialistic room dimmed so he could hardly see the other least he pressed their foreheads together. Shared Logan’s breaths and desire.</p><p>     The day was cold and against the heat of the bedroom, the windows began to fog, the room as warm as a child sitting before a hearth. The duvet pooled at their waists and the silk blankets beneath had been kicked down to their ankles, still-young bodies shifting and bending to draw closer, closer.</p><p>     With his lip caught between his teeth, eyes ablaze with all hell as if it pained him just as much as it pleased him to submit, Patton couldn't help himself. Not really.</p><p>     Dr. Logan Shaw was the intelligent psychopath framing him, after all, a murderer who had killed many and would certainly, given the chance, kill again. The smartest person in any and every room he stepped in.</p><p>     <em> Smartest no longer, </em>Patton thought as he swiped at Logan’s chest, eyes pooling with tears of anger as a killing calm settled over Logan’s face to make it void of emotion.</p><p>     A face that shook Patton from sleep still, even if he woke up to find other areas of him far less concerned and, instead, terrifyingly intrigued. Because it's not as if Patton had <em> liked </em>stabbing Logan. It was just, it was for justice and those five girls he murdered.</p><p>     It shouldn't matter whether or not Patton had gotten a tingling sensation from how damn powerful he felt, like a god at last.</p><p>     “You are not insane, and you may not be guilty either.”</p><p>     Patton just wondered if even a god was powerful enough to kill Dr. Logan Shaw.</p><p>     “This is an opportunity, Pat. If someone else claims responsibility for your crimes, he may want to be seen now.”</p><p>     It took all the strength in Patton’s body not to lean in and press his lips to Logan’s fingers, let his mouth wander until he had his chance to crush the bone between his teeth. Instead, he prompted, “Well, why would he want to be seen now, Dr. Shaw?”</p><p>     “Sir, step away from Mr. Roe, please,” a voice cautioned through the speaker, the alarm blaring as the bars creaked open. Hurried footsteps drew closer, but Patton didn't look away, didn't dare to.</p><p>     Neither did Logan.</p><p>     “Perhaps . . . perhaps it's because he cares about what happens to you.”</p><p>     The last Patton saw of his former psychiatrist was the other removing the coat from its perch on his arm and throwing it over his shoulders. Dark as night, it brought out the hints of sunshine highlighting his hair, and the paleness of the nape of his neck when he turned.</p><p>     Logan’s footsteps faded into silence, and Patton went back to staring at his wall.</p><p>     <em> Forgot how fun therapy could be, I should start again. </em></p><p>     And as Dr. Logan Shaw opened the driver’s side of his Bentley minutes later, he was thinking the same exact thing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hey guys!</p><p>we all know this by now, but 2020 has been an absolute train wreck, and my newest attempt at some sort of stability is by actually completing the 12 days of christmas this year! in 2019, certain events unfolded at a time preventing me from participating in this challenge--that no one else does or cares if i do LMAO--but i am determined to do this. even if they're short, you will be seeing twelve goddamn holiday sanders sides fics. maybe not all prinxiety because they haven't been inspiring me lately, but you'll definitely get some!</p><p>if you don't like fics that are fucked up like this and butcher christmas, i'm sorry, but i'm a morbid gal. if you're interested in some cute shit, see the 12 days of christmas 2018 babe.</p><p>until next time,<br/>ronnie</p></blockquote></div></div>
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